Several hundred people joined Mark’s family and friends today to demand justice, truth and accountability for the death of Mark Duggan 3 years ago today.

The family launched a fresh witness appeal and announced plans to establish a trust to fund projects in support of local young people.

Many other justice campaigns and family members including Janet Alder, Marci Rigg, Kadisha Burrell Brown, Myrna Simpson came out in support in addition to members of the community including Winston Silcott. Susan Alexander, whose son Azelle Rodney was shot dead by police, sent a message of support – and people pledged the news that a Met officer is to be prosecuted for murder in that case should be just the beginning. The Justice 4 Mark Duggan campaign would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who attended the march and vigil and supported the journey towards truth and justice.

The family and supporters of Mark Duggan are urging anyone who was in the Ferry Lane and Tottenham area on the day of Mark’s murder to come forward as witnesses.

Within hours of Mark being shot dead by armed police on 4 August 2011, stories were circulating about a dramatic ‘shootout’, a ‘violent gangster’, and gangland ‘revenge killings’.

Long before the jury sat in the courtroom, the police, Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the judiciary, and the media all played important roles in determining how the shooting was framed.

Mark was shot and killed in broad daylight. The family believe this is why Mark was falsely presented as a ‘gangster’ – in order to discourage and scare witnesses from coming forward.
The family believe that witness statements can be a crucial part of bringing new evidence to light in the fight for justice for Mark. Previous cases of injustice have shown just how important witness statements have been in countering the police and media narratives of events.

Criminalising Shiji Lapite
On 16 December 1994 Shiji Lapite was stopped by two police officers for “acting suspiciously”. Half an hour later he was dead. The cause of death was asphyxia from compression of the neck consistent with the application of a neckhold.

Two police officers’ statements had claimed Shiji was acting suspiciously and in the officers’ notes Shiji was represented in a stereotypical and racist way, as a Nigerian drug dealer.

These police profiles were taken up by the mainstream press, who used rumours of the victim carrying drugs, to criminalise Shiji and to attempt to cut off any sympathy for him.

Shiji was presented during the inquest as “the biggest, strongest and most violent black man he’d [the police officer] had ever seen”. The Home office pathologist said Shiji was 5”10 and of medium build. The officers described him as a “ferocious animal”. A witness said he saw Shiji being continually punched and kicked – but the officers argued they fought Shiji off in self-defence. The most serious of Shiji’s injuries show crushing of his bones round his voice box.

Brain Douglas and the witness appeal

Just four months after Shiji Lapite’s death, on May 3 1995, 33-year-old Brian Douglas was on his way home when he was stopped by two police officers, PC Tuffy and PC Harrison. Brian was with his friend Stafford. The officers ordered them out of the car and, apparently unprovoked, hit Brian on the head with a new US-style baton. Brian had a fractured skill and was falling in and out consciousness, yet the police kept him for 15 hours before taking him to hospital. He was declared dead on 8 May.

In the police’s internal investigation, PC Tuffy claimed he hit Douglas on the shoulder and that the baton slid up to strike him on the head. The Douglas family began a door to door witness appeal. Brenda Weinberg, Brian’s sister, says that “There were several witnesses which actually saw the blow to Brian”. According to one witness, the officer “turned and made an over arm blow”. So there’s nothing that could have slid up! The blow came from an over arm movement – the strongest force you can use. To the family, that was not an accident, or even a defensive move, it was an attack blow.

The strength of the witness appeal in the Mark Duggan case

The IPCC attempted to gather witness statements when they were gathering evidence to be used at the inquest into the murder of Mark. It was noted that CCTV footage was gathered from “a number of sources” and then synced. But where was this footage gathered from and was all the evidence available used in court?

The IPCC was allowed to see intelligence relating to the planning of the Met police operation. However, when the IPCC commissioned a local superintendent to prepare a report on this, the evidence was prevented from being released, effectively denying the IPCC any access to police intelligence concerning the operation.

Legislation passed over the last 15 years has progressively increased the use of secret evidence, which has significantly undermined the accountability of policing operations. Most of the ‘information’ concerning Mark’s actions came from the armed officers who gave evidence at the Kevin Hutchinson-Foster trial, which was splashed round the right wing press – including the unproven allegation that Mark was holding a gun.
The following is taken from the institute of Race Relations – Framing the Death of Mark Duggan. The quote from Shaun Hall, Mark’s brother, near the end of the excerpt is very powerful:

CO19, armed officers, supported the operation (‘mobile armed support to surveillance’) gave their account at this trial. This is where the claim that Mark had been holding a gun began to emerge, unchallenged. Months before the inquest.

By the time of the inquest, in September 2013, it was the IPCC who had gathered ‘most’ of the evidence, while public opinion had been guided considerably by the Kevin Hutchinson-Foster trial. The mainstream press used this trial to present the police profiles as the main source of accurate information.

Witness C, a BBC journalist, was asked about witness B (a citizen who filmed up to 8 minutes of footage after Mark was shot):
A. He said he had no trust towards the police. He talked about events, and there are some notes that I’ve made, you know previously, but he talked about that he had no trust towards the police and that he would not go to the police.
A. He would not go. He would not go to — he did not want to go to the police and he did not want to go to the IPCC and I sensed that he was very scared.
Q. Could you work out who he was scared of?
A. He was scared of the police.

“So things like that played on my mind for a bit, as well, and you have people also talking, a whole bunch of stuff as well. So — yeah.
Question: “What sort of things?
Answer: “About, erm, him being in Tottenham, you know, all this stuff coming out like, you know — you know, gangs and all of that stuff really, so I just didn’t want to be bothered with it, that was it.”http://dugganinquest.independent.gov.uk/transcripts/1667.htm

The coroner wrote in his recent report:

“I had the assistance of a team. It commissioned further expert reports and with its assistance I decided which witnesses to call. Among those witnesses was a man who came to be known as Witness B. At the time of the shooting he lived in a flat overlooking Ferry Lane. He was alerted to the shooting and he captured some of its aftermath using the camera on his mobile phone and a camera. He provided the footage to the BBC and, with the benefit of my powers of compulsion, Witness B was persuaded to give evidence to explain what he had seen and heard… His evidence was plainly significant. Despite the IPCC’s call for witnesses and notwithstanding a similar exercise undertaken on my behalf, I very strongly suspect there were other eyewitnesses to the shooting, but none came forward.”

Mark’s family and supporters of the Justice for Mark Duggan campaign want to conduct a thorough witness appeal and to bring new evidence to light. If you or anyone you know was in the area on the day at the time of, or before and after the time when Mark was murdered, Mark’s family would like to talk to you, even if what you saw doesn’t seem to be crucial. Please get in touch by phoning 07852 247038

Families of people who have died in police custody will be joining Mark Duggan’s family for a march and vigil in his memory, taking place today on the third anniversary of his shooting by police in Tottenham.

“I stand with the Duggan family in remembrance of their loved one, Mark.” said Marcia Rigg, the sister of Sean Rigg who died in a Brixton police station in 2008. “Why? Our questions are the very same even though we had never met before. Unity is the families strength and the trick is to never give up the fight, for how else will justice come?” Others attending include relatives of Cherry Groce, Joy Gardner, Christopher Alder, Roger Sylvester and Leon Patterson. Diane Abbott MP has released a statement in support of the family.

Susan Alexander, the mother of Azelle Rodney, has also sent a message of support to the family which will be read out at the vigil. The CPS announced last week it will be prosecuting Officer E7 for Azelle Rodney’s murder. He was killed during a “hard stop” in 2005. Six years later, and despite recommendations by the IPCC to review this “high risk” tactic, Mark Duggan was shot by police in another “hard stop”.

Fresh witness appeal

The march and vigil follows on from last month’s judicial review at the High Court in which the family have sought to have the Inquest conclusion of “lawful killing” quashed. The result will be know in the autumn (likely September or October).

In the meantime the Justice for Mark Duggan family campaign is launching a fresh appeal for witnesses. In a highly critical report following the Inquest, the Coroner Judge Keith Cutler, expressed concern that that “doubts about the accuracy of police accounts are not minimised”.

He identified a number of issues including the “scope for conferring” between police, the handling of the crime scene which saw crucial evidence moved, and the failure to record the scene (despite the first aid attempts being filmed by police), which may have helped with “the significant issue of how and when the gun got some distance from Mark’s body”.

Judge Cutler also identified the falsehood that Mark had shot at police first (he was in fact unarmed), circulated by a still unidentified source at the IPCC to the media, as contributing the reluctance of witnesses to the shooting to come forward.

The only independent witness to the shooting to come forward so far, “Witness B”, described Marks killing as an “execution’. The campaign hopes this fresh witness appeal will encourage people who may witnesses something come forward. Eye witness evidence has been crucial to establishing facts of how people have died in custody or following police contact in many other cases.

► The march assembles 5pm, Monday 4 August 2014, at Broadwater Farm then proceeds to Ferry Lane for a vigil from 6pm to 7pm

I am deeply dismayed that three years after the death of Mark Duggan and months after the inquest into his death his family are still waiting for justice.

The inquest verdict raised serious concerns and justified questions. Many cannot understand how they reached a conclusion of lawful killing, given that the jury decided that Mark was not holding a gun in his hand when he exited the vehicle and stood before the police officers,

The reaction to the verdict is more than mere disappointment, it has far-reaching ramifications. Let us think about what it says to young BME people who are disproportionately and routinely stopped, search and suspected of committing crimes. Let us think about the genuine fear that all that is necessary is an “honest and mistaken belief” that you might be a danger to end your life.

This does nothing to repair the decimated relations between the police and the black community. It is important that we take action on the issues raised by Marks death, including whether or not the IPCC is fit for purpose and the deaths of BME people in custody. We must send a clear message that no one is above the law. The Police cannot legitimately police our communities if they are not held to account for their actions.

I fully support the Duggan family in their calls for peace and justice. And I ask you all to continue supporting the Duggan family, the Justice4Mark Duggan campaign, and the many other campaigns that continue to fight for justice following the deaths of their loved ones in police custody.